High-speed intravascular photoacoustic imaging of lipid-laden atherosclerotic plaque enabled by a 2-kHz barium nitrite raman laser.

Lipid deposition inside the arterial wall is a key indicator of plaque vulnerability. An intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) catheter is considered a promising device for quantifying the amount of lipid inside the arterial wall. Thus far, IVPA systems suffered from slow imaging speed (~50 s per frame) due to the lack of a suitable laser source for high-speed excitation of molecular overtone vibrations. Here, we report an improvement in IVPA imaging speed by two orders of magnitude, to 1.0 s per frame, enabled by a custom-built, 2-kHz master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA)-pumped, barium nitrite [Ba(NO3)2] Raman laser. This advancement narrows the gap in translating the IVPA technology to the clinical setting.

动脉壁内的脂质沉积是斑块易损性的关键指标。血管内光声（IVPA）导管被认为是一种用于量化动脉壁内脂质含量的有前景的设备。到目前为止，由于缺乏适用于分子泛音振动高速激发的激光源，IVPA系统的成像速度较慢（约每帧50秒）。在此，我们报道通过一种定制的、由2 - kHz主振荡功率放大器（MOPA）泵浦的亚硝酸钡[Ba(NO3)2]拉曼激光，将IVPA成像速度提高了两个数量级，达到每帧1.0秒。这一进展缩小了将IVPA技术转化到临床应用的差距。